Yes, I'm on a food roll this week, but hey, why not?

So the story here in part is this -- some months back I posted this beet risotto recipe I'd tried out and according to a friend that post is now somewhere in the top ten or twenty posts on risotto with beets or the like in Google. Won't say no.

Thus inspired I figured why not give another beet recipe a try, since I had some in the basket. As I had a lot of fennel I wondered if there was a combination recipe out there and it turns out there are plenty, but this one took my fancy -- this is the page it's found on. The difference is that I did not have any vermouth, so I simply substituted water and the thing still tasted great.

Which it did -- I was quite pleased and a little surprised at how rich but mellow the dish come out as. With the cooking toning down the fennel a bit while the beets' natural flavoring and the mustard combined nicely, not to mention the chives, I was quite pleased with this one, and it's been a week of good eats. Give it a whirl if you like! Follow the link provided for the recipe, and please note the comments and suggestions as well.

I like to make things that the wife can take to the office for lunch so last night I put our chives to use and whipped up a little egg salad a la Alice Waters. I didn't complain that there was plenty leftover for me to indulge. The kick of garlic, capers, and chives, the snap-crunch of celery, and the smooth creamy blend of egg yokes and homemade aioli make for a fantastic, easily transportable meal. Do I hear picnic anybody?

For recipe...

Egg Salad a la Alice Waters (doctored to my tastes)

6 hard cooked eggs, chopped coarsely

3 tablespoons chives, chopped

3/4 cup celery, diced (3-4 ribs)

2 teaspoons capers, rinsed, dried, and chopped

1/3 cup aioli

Salt, fresh ground pepper, and a touch of cayenne

Mix everything together, slather over a toasted rustic bread, and enjoy!

Homemade Aioli:

1 egg yoke

1/2 teaspoon water

pinch of salt and pepper

2 garlic cloves, ground in mortar and pestle into paste

splash of lemon juice

In a mixing bowl, whisk egg, half of garlic, and water together and then slowly add oil, whisking constantly until mixture thickens. Taste and adjust with more garlic, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

Rudbeckia 'Toto' and dill (the latter grown from seed)

On the right is one of a copious number of lavender buds.  I wish I could share some big impressive trick about the dill, but really all I've ever done with dill is just take a handful of seeds and broadcast them in a general area, and then repeat it a couple times if I want to seed it in various places.  This rudbeckia was one I got at the farmers' market this year.  It has done the best out of the six 'Toto's; some of them seem to have totally died.  Let this be a stark reminder to you that if you purchase rudbeckia after it's already warm out, plant it promptly and keep it well-watered while it's settling in.  Rudbeckias, especially the cultivars that tend to be grown as annuals, don't react well to stress, and in particular, have a habit of reacting to hot, dry weather by developing mildew on their leaves.  Not only is it not pretty, but if the plants are still small, just a day or three is enough time for it to spread enough to kill them.  (And I even watered them more often than other plants, moreso after they developed mildew; apparently it still wasn't enough.)  At least my 'Toto' tragedy has led me to be more vigilant of the 'Indian Summer' rudbeckias (also purchased at the market) and they've all survived so far.

Dianthus 'Inchmery' blooms with pansy blooms

California poppy foliage on the left; agastache 'Acapulco Orange' foliage on the right.

Lima beans and garden beans with lemon verbena

The limas (a bush variety, I think 'Henderson's Bush' but I can't remember for sure right now) are on the bottom of the photo, the leaves with the rounded dip in them.  The garden beans (vining kinds; I've always primarily grown garden bean varieties that are either pole beans or vine well enough to grow on poles) are the leaves that look somewhat similar but are less rounded in appearance, to the left and above the limas in this photo.  The lemon verbena is flopping around in this shot.  This year's lemon verbena has had a lot of trouble staying horizontal.  I've tried putting a stake in the middle of it and it still seems to flop over even with the stake there.  I suspect it's because last year I bought one that was leggier and that seems to have actually made it adapt better to a windy site than the one I got this year, which was shrubbier (more like lemon verbena's natural form).  On the far right are some leaves and a bloom stalk of the sea holly, which develops new buds every single day but still hasn't opened any of them.

One of my many beloved salpiglossis plants (center), backed by pansies, violas, a 'Tangerine Gem' marigold, and a California poppy:

The salpiglossis (AKA painted tongue) pictured here was the first to bloom; these were its first blooms.

Pansies and creeping snapdragons:

The coloration of pansies and violas is so fascinating to me.  The blue and yellow one varies in how much yellow it has depending on some factor I have yet to determine (amount of sunlight? temperature when the bloom is forming? I don't know).

Chive blooms starting to fade:

In the background are a 'Profusion Fire' zinnia bloom (orange on left), two buds of a pinkish California poppy (right), and a bloom of 'White Lily' verbena (upper left).  'White Lily' turns out to be fairly susceptible to some kind of mildew; one of my two plants has a pretty bad infection and the other has a mild one, and they developed it so fast that the bad infection sprang up literally inbetween times I checked on the plant.

Ingredients:

Filling

2 packages of 50-piece wonton skin (can be found in Chinese grocery stores)

A bowl of water

Two 9x9 baking pans

Wax Paper

Freezer space (for storage)

Directions:

Line pan with wax paper to prevent wontons from sticking to the pan.

Take one wonton skin and place a small amount of filling in the center.

Dip your finger in water and wet the top of the wonton skin.

Fold bottom of the wonton skin over.

Wet a corner of the wonton (closest to the crease) and fold over as shown:

Follow through by folding remaining edges in towards the center and securing corners together (the water will "glue" the wonton shut):

It gets easier as you go and eventually you will have a whole army of wontons!

You can put them in the freezer for storage. See tomorrow's entry for how to prepare them to eat! Stay tuned!

Ingredients:

Chives (a big bunch)

Soy sauce (a little)

Salt (a little)

Cooking oil (a little... total: roughly 1 tablespoon)

Ground pork (roughly 1 pound)

Corn starch (roughly 1 tablespoon)

Directions:

So first you take a big bunch of Chinese chives (my mom says that Chinese chives are different from American chives... all I know is that the smell is so pungent that it makes my head spin). Wash it thoroughly and set it aside to dry. Note that if the chives are wet, then your wontons will end up all soggy. Below is how much chives my mom used.

Then you chop all of it into itty bitty pieces using a butcher knife. Put them into a bowl of some sort so your cutting board doesn't clutter.

Take a large mixing bowl and put about 1 tablespoon of corn starch, a sprinkle of salt, and enough soy sauce to just cover the powder. Then add just a touch of cooking oil.

Mix it until it becomes a murky (but homogenous and smooth) brown mixture.

Take about 1 pound of ground pork and mix it in with the murky brown.

Put a handful or two of the chopped chives on top of the pork, add a sprinkle of salt, and a touch of cooking oil. Mix thoroughly.

Repeat for the entire stock of chopped chives.

And you're done! Now all that's left is the wonton-wrapping! See the next post for a pictorial tutorial (Hey! Alliteration!)!